where the good things grow
by burninganchors
Summary: Winterlock Exchange gift for anneincolor: "I have a magic garden." As come-ons go, John's heard worse.


_A Winterlock Exchange gift for anneincolor, whose prompts included fluffy smut and fantasy or coffeeshop AUs - to which my brain went, "Why not both?" Er, sort of. Some bonus fake boyfriends and Greg/Molly if you squint!_

* * *

"I have a magic garden."

As come-ons go, John's heard worse.

"Do you now," he murmurs, squinting at the package in his hands. _Might as well humor the man._ He settles it carefully on the shelf with the rest of the Jasmine Green.

Behind him, Sherlock's lifting the last empty crates into the truck that idles at the edge of the loading dock. John can hear his movements as they pause and slowly resume, this time with more force. "Of course," Sherlock answers, and John smirks when it sounds affronted.

He turns away from the stock shelves, moving outside into the bay. For a moment he watches the play of dawn over Sherlock in his white shirtsleeves, rolled up to the elbows as he works. Frowning, John leans against the brickface and crosses his arms. The quiet familiarity of it all is almost eerily at odds with Sherlock's words - rather, the fact that he's saying any words at all.

Sherlock's been their grower since before John got back from Uni, weathered Da's death and the messy business of the inheritance just the same, was a constant of silence and tea leaves in the morning for countless years. But this is the most he's ever spoken.

To John, at least.

Curiosity gets the better of him at last. Trying to ponder what that means gets him nowhere, so finally he sucks in a breath and calls down, "How is it magic?"

Sherlock allows the roll-up door of the truck to fall shut. He turns, and after a long moment the surprise in his eyes slides into wary amusement. "Why do you think people would bother with your shop if not for my home-grown teas?"

"We sell coffee, too," John points out, but Sherlock flutters his hands impatiently.

"If you had to rely on your coffee sales for revenue, you'd be on the streets."

John should be offended, at least on behalf of their brewer. Instead he grins. "How?"

Sherlock looks surprised again. "What?"

"How is it magic?" he repeats, soft.

Something almost a smile overtakes Sherlock's face. His cheeks catch the sunrise like a blush as he answers, "Come and see."

* * *

Sherlock sweeps into the pantry, headed for the shelves at the far end. The windows look as if they haven't been cleaned in ages, and the moon's a murky film filtering over the bony dips of Sherlock's silhouette. John squints into the dark while Sherlock moves with ease, his long, pale fingers trailing over the old wood and layers, layers of dust. They seize on the White Rose blend before he whirls, breaking it open and holding it out to John.

His smile glints, a crescent with its own lunar promise. "Smell."

John's still in his shop clothes. The scent of a hundred other teas, coffees and creams around him is almost visible, the shimmering aura of a hard day's work. That Sherlock thinks one more tea is going to -

He sniffs dubiously. Looks up at Sherlock with skeptical eyebrows raised.

"John." Sherlock's eyes are luminous. "Trust me."

He sighs. But he nevertheless closes his eyes and inhales.

_Oh_.

John steps back. Leans forward and inhales again. Looks up at Sherlock to see him grinning, spilling over into laughter so infectious John is helpless not to join in.

* * *

"A moment of clarity," Sherlock reveals, thunking down two china cups piping hot and full of a tremulous, golden-red brew. "That's the White Rose blend."

"Why that one?" John accepts his cup gratefully. He blows air over the top, pursing his lips. "Why White Rose for, um - clarity?"

Sherlock, settling in his chair, shrugs. He'd draped his coat over the couch back in the other room, and he's got his sleeves tugged down the whole way now, the large hands fixed about his cup disappearing into delicate wrists that flute back into paler cotton.

The next sip John takes is too much and too hot. When he finally stops sputtering Sherlock still hasn't taken his eyes from John's face, narrowed and considering, bright and pale over his high-boned features. He still hasn't, John notes, had any of his own tea.

"The White Rose," Sherlock grants at last, "is, traditionally, a symbol of purity. The first scent of my White Rose blend brings a moment of pure thought: if you have a problem that needs solving, if you have a question that needs an answer, a cup of the Rose is your best bet."

John opens his mouth. Closes it again. Sips his tea.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Come on, you know I'm not lying. What was the answer you found, back in the storage shed?"

John asks a different question instead. "You said it was a magic garden. All I've seen so far is admittedly magic tea in a perfectly ordinary - if extraordinarily dusty," he says with a pointed look, "pantry. Where's the garden?"

He stops himself from asking, _And is there more?_

It's at this moment Sherlock takes a sip, eyes never leaving John's. He hums, low and deep, and after he swallows he speaks in a voice liquid-thick: "It's late, John Watson."

Something in John sinks down to his belly, lumpy and cold where the tea curls warm. He's about to protest, but then Sherlock adds, "Come back next week, when it's light, and I'll show you."

* * *

John spends his Sunday morning off trying on three different shirts, tidying up an already sparse house and staring at the clock. Noon rolls around and he gives it up as a bad job, heading out to Sherlock's cottage before the nerves convince him he shouldn't go at all.

Only, no one answers his knock. John gives it another, just to be sure, but the porch is the only thing replying as it creaks forlornly beneath his feet.

That, and the sound of bees.

Warily, John peeks around the side of the house. The stairs at the end of the porch slope down to an old picket fence. Behind it all manner of plants and flowers are heavy with early spring bloom, a few of John's buzzing culprits hovering around the blossoms. John stares. Not lying about the garden.

Sherlock sprouts up from the ground like one of his flowers. "Ah! John!"

John blinks.

"You were lying in the garden. On the ground," he clarifies.

"Yes," Sherlock agrees, making his way over to the gate.

"What were you _doing_?"

Sherlock ignores this, leaning between the posts and propping his chin on a hand. There's a yellow petal trapped in his curls. He narrows his eyes at John's shirt. "Should have gone with the first one."

John looks down and sighs deeply, but Sherlock's already unlatching the gate and motioning him inside.

"It's more than just tea," John comments as they walk. Ivy had curled between the slats of the old white fence; now as they head into Sherlock's garden the path is trimmed with bluebells and delphinium, sprays of red and white flowers John's never seen before running up to the climbing hydrangeas and rose bushes up against the house.

He looks up at Sherlock in amazement, catching the subtle smile even as Sherlock's turning his face to hide it. "Are they all -"

"Magic?" Sherlock inhales, his forehead creasing. "I don't know."

John laughs incredulously as Sherlock tugs him past a wall of holly. "How can you not know? It's got to be something you'd -"

John swallows. "Notice," he finishes, but no longer cares nor remembers what he'd been saying.

Ahead of them are rows and rows of carefully trimmed green tea plants, entire meadows of tea hidden behind the holly. But now that they've stepped beyond it John can see how the fields skate back beneath a brilliant sun to dwindle on the horizon, where they're overtaken by greener hills. It's breathtaking. It can't possibly be real; for all their drinking England's shit for tea growing. And yet -

John brushes his hand over the tops of a row, feeling the prickle of growth against his palm. Definitely real.

Sherlock steps forward, cutting the scythe of his gaze over the fields. "A perfect microclimate. Here it rains only when the plants require it and the soil is always fresh. Every day receives only the exact amount of required sunlight. The harvests arrive on the same days every year. Of course, the processing is where the magic really happens, but John."

Sherlock turns, this time with a smile honest and full stretching across his face. "This is why you're still in business."

John just nods, and laughs and laughs.

* * *

A few days later Sherlock shows him where he processes the tea, bundles of the plant strewn over wooden counters in various stages of wither and dry. The adjacent room is surprisingly neat in contrast - but Sherlock tugs open drawer after drawer, revealing dried bits of fruit, fragrant flowers and herbs.

"Blending room," Sherlock explains. He casts John a glance that, if John didn't know better by now, he'd call sheepish. "I'm afraid I wasn't entirely truthful with you before. It's true that I don't know if _all_ of the plants in the garden possess magical attributes. But it's in creating my tea blends I learn which ones do. For example -" he tugs open a drawer, its bed strewn with pale buds. "The White Rose you sampled."

The drawer beneath it is full of the dark, stripey bark of the French willow. "Courage," Sherlock explains, his eyes skating away from John's. There's a drawer full of blackberry, another of honeysuckle. Below that: "My personal favorite." Sherlock grabs a handful and inhales, coming away with a sigh. "Walnut, for intellect."

John, smirking, notices a jar of purple-red seeds on the worktop. "What about those?" he asks, pointing.

Sherlock frowns and picks up the jar, tossing it from hand to hand experimentally. "Pomegranate seeds. I started working with them about a week ago; can't seem to extract anything valuable."

"So far," John says quietly.

Sherlock looks at him in surprise. Carefully he sets down the jar. His face turned toward the window he echoes, "So far."

As they leave, Sherlock pauses to curl a small packet into John's palms, his hands clumsy with gentleness. "Haven't released this yet, but I have a feeling it'll be a hit - it's the Violet Black," he says.

Meets John's gaze. "For faith."

* * *

John starts making trips to the garden on a weekly basis, then a daily one, and eventually it's no secret around their small town that whenever John's not tending the shop, he's probably hanging around with that strange old Holmes fellow. Once, John brings up the rumors only to have Sherlock snarl something scathing about the stupidity of the human race, and that's that. Life with Sherlock is _exciting_ - that magic garden isn't half the mystery that is the man - and John hasn't had that in years, so sod what anyone else thinks.

"You're the first to say that," Sherlock says when John tells him, an odd look passing over his features.

"What do people normally say?"

"I don't usually speak to anyone. You of all people would know."

Years and years of deliveries in silence prove his point, but John still wonders.

"What made me different?"

Sherlock turns back to his brew, and before he can reply it explodes. Only a bit, but an explosion nonetheless, so they're suitably distracted.

But John's reminded of that conversation one day as he walks into the yard just as the sun's starting to set. He pauses. A lavish silver sports car is purring in the driveway.

John narrows his eyes.

The bees are drowsy and the birds silent, so he can just hear voices coming from the back garden. _Raised_ voices, he notes with a small stab of worry. He slips in through the back gate, frowning, and only then does he spot Sherlock conversing with the strange figure at the far end of the apiary.

The man's tall, with a hawkish nose and beady eyes, and John immediately doesn't like the look of him. Strangers are rare in this town, it's natural to be suspicious. Still, John hesitates over the protective urge - surely Sherlock's got other partners, and his business isn't any of John's. Maybe he should leave it up to Sherlock to take care of himself.

But it's when he sees how Sherlock's shoulders hunch, his eyes darting away while the man seems to loom and growl, that John decides to act.

"Hello, love," he says, too loud, stalking over and looping his arm around Sherlock's waist. He plants a big, smacking kiss on Sherlock's cheek. "Sorry I was so long at the shops." He feigns spotting the man for the first time, as if he hadn't had to brush past him to get to Sherlock. "Oh, hello." John laces his voice with disdain he doesn't have to fake. "And who are you?"

"This trickster sold me a blend," the man says sourly. "Said it would make me richer than most people could dream of, and you know what I got out of it?"

"Nothing," Sherlock says, speaking for the first time. His voice is flat, but John notices that his eyes burn cold. "You were already incredibly rich, far beyond the wildest imaginings of many. I make magic, not miracles." Sherlock's arm goes to John's waist and tightens. "But maybe I could interest you in an herbal blend, a bit of the Wild Grape Soother, perhaps. Does wonders for _charity_."

The man's face pulses with red, his hands shaking where they're clenched around an elaborate cane. John tenses, almost certain he's going to have to ward him off - but then the man simply turns and stomps from the garden.

"Nice, Sherlock, nice company you keep," John says, after they've finished watching the man go. He twists back to look at Sherlock. "Who was -"

Sherlock's looking down at John's arm, still wrapping them close. "Oh, cor, sorry," John mutters, coloring and stepping back. He laughs unevenly, searching for something to break the silence. "'I make magic, not miracles?' Do you rehearse this stuff?"

But instead of a smirk, the half-amused glance he expects, Sherlock looks at him and John's stomach plummets - Sherlock looks devastated for the split second John's allowed to see, and then Sherlock's tearing off toward the house without looking back. John stares after him in shock, and when he shakes himself back to reality John's already chasing after him.

"Sherlock, wait!" _Him and those stupidly long legs_. "Would you just -"

He catches Sherlock's coat sleeve as he's mounting the porch, and Sherlock whirls to face him, manic, his eyes as closed-off as they were for the years and years they passed together in silence. John's heart clenches with dread - what has he _done_, to send them back to this?

"Talk to me," he pants.

Sherlock flinches. _Flinches. _"Jesus," John breathes, and then, "what have I -"

"Nothing," Sherlock snaps. He swallows, as if he's biting back something foul. "It's nothing. I've work to do, please excuse me."

John's grip tightens. "Sherlock, please."

Sherlock's eyes are very, very wide.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Sherlock exhales loudly. "Why do you _care_?"

He must be looking at Sherlock like he's from the bloody moon, he thinks. "Sherlock," he starts, and feels a smile flicker uncertainly on his face. "I'm your friend."

Sherlock's mouth opens, closes again. It is, John notes, very quiet in the yard in the summer evening.

"The first morning I spoke to you," Sherlock says, "this past spring, do you remember?" Sherlock is shaking all over.

"Of course," John says softly, nodding vigorously. As gently as he can, he tugs Sherlock down until they're both sitting on the steps, Sherlock propped just above him. His eyes stare out at his garden in bloom, a strange, desolate blue.

"I'd been drinking, the French Vanilla blend. Bravery. Companionship," he spits at last. "Why else would I have dared break a lifelong silence?"

"You mean," John says slowly, still struggling to understand, "it gave you a moment of, what, courage to… talk to me?"

"It gave me the words, the exact words - I despise small talk, I've never been good at it. This gave me something that would interest you, something that would make you… look twice." He stares at John like the confession has emptied him completely. "It's all a lie, isn't it? We began on a lie."

John watches his eyes flicker down to John's arms, as if he can still feel them wrapped around his waist.

"No." The word leaps from John immediately, and the force behind it surprises them both. But John presses forward.

"You said once, you told me the tea enhances qualities that are already there, right? You need to empty your mind to have a moment of clarity. Something with walnut won't make a genius of a fool. Something like that, yeah?"

Sherlock's now staring down at where John has, unbeknownst to even him, threaded their fingers together. "Yes," he rasps. John squeezes his hand.

"You would have found a way," he says, with certainty. "The magic part of it all is _you,_ Sherlock, not the ruddy tea. Don't tell me you wouldn't have found a way."

To John's relief, a smirk is quirking Sherlock's lips. "I wanted," he tries, and stops. Takes a deep breath. "I wanted very badly to talk. With you."

"Why me?" John's smiling, but it fades the longer Sherlock stares.

If there's a hint of an answering smile on Sherlock's face, then it's a helpless one, oddly sad. "John Watson," he says, and never finishes.

John nods slowly. He doesn't quite understand. But looking at Sherlock - Sherlock, still staring down at John's hand in his like it is marvelous, like it is a miracle - he thinks he just might, more than he gives himself credit for.

"My moment of clarity," John blurts, unable, _unwanting _to stop himself, "that first time - it was you. That I had been searching for something, and I would find it in you." He looks up into Sherlock's face, his mouth dry. "I did."

They sit in silence till the sun goes down. No words necessary.

* * *

The next day Sherlock comes into his shop, which isn't unusual, but then he orders a cup of tea. "Stove's gone off," Sherlock explains with a dismissive hand-wave. "I'll get someone in to fix it, but at the moment I'm just _desperate_ for some of my Yellow Ginseng."

John raises an eyebrow but Sherlock simply blinks back at him earnestly. With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, he asks, "For here, I assume?"

As John sets about brewing his tea, Sherlock calls from the bar, "Do you know what the main ingredient is in that blend?"

"Ginseng?"

Sherlock glares. "The other one."

John doesn't. Sherlock's usually ever so eager to talk about his own genius that he knows he'll find out anyway. He doesn't, he realizes not for the first time, particularly mind.

But Sherlock waits until John's set it in front of him to meet John's eyes and say, softly, "Dahlia, John. Dahlia for giftings." Sherlock's fingers wrap around his own on the cup, strangely heavy.

At that precise moment, Sherlock's phone signals an incoming text. He frowns at the screen, and John catches a mumble of something about 'idiots' and 'shipments' and 'rabid foxes' before Sherlock's whisking off in his greatcoat without so much as a goodbye.

"Your tea!" he shouts after him as Sherlock reaches the door. "I can put it in a to-go cup, if you -?"

"You can have it," Sherlock shouts back over his shoulder, and then he's gone. The other customers stare after him, amused and well-used to Sherlock's eccentricities, and soon forget.

But John's not thick, whatever Sherlock thinks. He stares after him suspiciously and then, gingerly, clearing his mind, takes a sip of the tea. It hits him as strongly as a wave, softly as the air over a field of dahlia:

_Gratitude._

It's a bit strange, the emotional transference of it, but vivid: he gets flashes of Sherlock's hands as he prepares a blend, sees a glimpse of himself outlined by the dying sun, as Sherlock must have seen him where they lingered last night on the porch steps. Bees in a cluster. The smell of old books and something he knows, without knowing, is the scent Sherlock's father wore. A tuneless lullaby for violin.

John gasps back to reality, darting a glance around the shop as he surfaces. No one seems to have noticed, even though John's heart is racing and his skin sweats. A private exchange - almost as if it had never really happened at all.

But it did. _Oh,_ John thinks, feeling as if the bees are buzzing under his skin, _how it did._

"Drama queen," John whispers as he gets back to business, fixing another order. But he catches himself taking another sip anyway. "Could've just said 'thanks.'"

* * *

"Why did I never notice?" John asks, once, as he's helping Sherlock with some of the planting. Sherlock looks up, questioning. "That they were magic. I made that tea, drank that tea for _years_, and I just -"

"No one does, not until it's pointed out to them. Natural magic is…" Sherlock grimaces at his hands, covered in dirt. "So-called ordinary, everyday life is infused with possibilities the minds of men hardly dare conceive. There is magic in everything, if only we recognize it for what it is."

John shuts his mouth. He has to toss another shovelful of dirt into the flower bed before he can respond. "I'm not sure I know what you mean." He stops, and leaning on his shovel, throws a smile back at Sherlock. "But I like the way you see the world."

He can feel Sherlock's eyes on him long after he's turned away. It's an even longer time before Sherlock sighs and replies, "You do see." He flicks dirt in John's direction, and John turns to see a playful, shy smile on his face. "You just don't _observe_."

And then, his face softening: "But you will. In time."

* * *

John never says, but as his visits to Sherlock's garden grow more numerous he learns that his favorite moments often come when he's stretched out in the garden while Sherlock's tending the bees, or pruning the laurel, or running another of his mad experiments. He'll be listening to the breeze and the buzz of insects around him, sometimes the thready note of Sherlock talking at him about things he couldn't possibly understand (but Sherlock says it helps him think anyway, so no matter). Sometimes there will be a book in his hands as he reads beneath the shade of the willow, or a cup of that famous tea clutched tight.

And then without warning he'll feel Sherlock's eyes on him. He'll look up to catch his pale gaze. He'll smile. And his absolute favorite moments are when Sherlock, no longer hesitant, not after all this time, smiles back.

Sherlock never says, but they're his favorites, too.

* * *

He secretly hopes for a while that it will happen, but it's even sooner than John thinks that Sherlock finally invites him along on the harvest. Sherlock's crouched at one of the bushes in the mist, back turned when John approaches. "Ah, J-"

Sherlock stops short when John drops a large, wide-brimmed hat over his head. "Don't think I didn't notice your sunburn last year."

"We weren't even _talking_ last year," Sherlock grumbles, but he sighs and adjusts it till it sits more carefully atop his artful curls before stomping up the line of plants. John smirks after him.

"Maybe I'm more observant than you give me credit for," he calls, fastening the strap of his own hat beneath his chin and marching off in his footsteps.

"Unlikely."

Sherlock teaches him how to pick the youngest leaves, to sample for the buds that are freshest, and by noon they have a sizable haul.

"Enough for today, I think," Sherlock sighs, dropping his pack on the ground. He stretches, shirt riding up and exposing a pale strip of vulnerable belly. John, sitting on the ground with his own pack at his side, looks away.

"This won't make you hardly anything," John says, feeling strange under the high heat of the sun.

"Tea-making." He hears Sherlock come to sit next to him on the grassy hill, the whisper of expensive fabric as he lies on his back. "Thankless business," he murmurs, already sounding half-asleep.

John risks a glance over at him, squinting through his lashes. He's stretched out in the sunlight like a lean, stringy cat. It would look elegant except for the straw hat flipped over his face. John's glance turns more scrutinizing.

"What." The voice is that of a petulant child, not a thirty year old gardening magician.

John grins. "You're not still upset about the hat."

Sherlock shifts his shoulders. "No," he says sulkily.

"Oh my god, it's the _hair_."

"No -"

"Hat hair."

Sherlock is suspiciously silent.

"Come on, let's see it," John says, reaching for the hat.

Sherlock clutches it fiercely over his face, growling a bit. It makes John giggle, and they wrestle over the hat before John is forced to his last resort.

His suspicions about Sherlock's weaknesses are confirmed when Sherlock, hat still plastered firmly over his face and hair, almost _leaps_ away from John's tickling fingers. "No, please, I'm not -" he gasps, wriggling and laughing as John leans over him, diving under Sherlock's armpits. Sherlock finally wrenches the hat away, his protests fading into breathless pleas for mercy.

John, still shaking with laughter, has another fit looking at Sherlock's hair - a hot, sweaty morning beneath a hat has exploded his curls from their usual controlled mess, and after their struggle there are bits of grass and even tea leaves peeking through the dark, wrecked strands.

"Shut up," Sherlock groans, still catching his breath, and John only laughs harder, arms shaking where they brace themselves over Sherlock's head.

"You look ridiculous," he pants. "Like the most…ridiculous thing…" he trails off. Sherlock's narrowed eyes are full of the sun, an already ethereal blue-green now gone impossible, unnameable.

One of Sherlock's curls has fallen into one those eyes. It's only natural to brush it back from his forehead with a hand that is, strangely, trembling.

Sherlock's breath is quiet and fast.

Sherlock catches his wrist as John moves to pull it back. His fingers are very soft. For a moment, Sherlock just stares. Then he swallows and, slowly, pulls John down.

Sherlock's mouth opens beneath his, with a quiet hitch of breath that echoes somewhere in John's chest.

He kisses Sherlock gently, easily. The suction on Sherlock's bottom lip draws his tongue to John's with wet, tentative touches.

A sudden, bold nip of Sherlock's teeth at his mouth makes John start back in surprise, but Sherlock only surges forward, hands coming up to hold John's head in place. He curls his palms warm and sure over John's jaw.

John runs a hand up Sherlock's chest, slipping under his shirt. Sherlock rolls toward the touch - they're both more than a little sweaty from the harvest, but Sherlock's body is hot and firm under his skimming touches. "Sherlock," he warns when one of Sherlock's hands slips to his waist, edging lower. Sherlock kisses him innocently. John rolls his eyes and continues to feather his mouth over the corner of those bow lips, his chin and his jaw.

Sherlock bares his neck, eyes tightly closed, and his other hand clutches at John's shoulder, his thumb slipping under the straps of John's vest to rub quick circles into his sweat-slicked skin. John presses his nose to the join of Sherlock's neck and shoulder, taking a shaky breath. Unexpectedly, he grins.

Sherlock feels it and tenses. "What?" he asks, at the same time as he's trying to nuzzle John's face back to meet his own.

"You've been _perfuming_ yourself with the _peach_, you romantic little -"

"It's not the magic variety," Sherlock says quickly. His face, already pink, flushes deep red. "None of the, ah. Aphrodisiac qualities, I assure you_ohh_, yes, _John_ -"

John lifts his face from the mark at the base of Sherlock's neck, smiling at his sticky red result. He licks it with the broad flat of his tongue, then replies, "Maybe not, but you know it's my favorite."

* * *

In the early dawn, Sherlock finds him. He pads out to the porch, barefoot, and hands down a cup of tea in silence. There's a hesitation between that moment and the one where he leans down and brushes his lips over John's brow. John smiles.

Together they watch the sun come up, flood the garden with color and light.

_I think we could grow old together here_, John thinks. It blooms in his mind like it was always meant to, glow-bright and warm. _This is a place where good things grow._

Sherlock looks at him, long and hard, before directing the same look to his tea. "Move in with me," he says, not a question, and when John gently, so gently turns Sherlock's face to his own, kissing him tastes like relief and White Rose.

* * *

He's lying on his back in Sherlock's garden - _their_ garden, he supposes, not without a heady flush even now that they've papers to prove it - looking up at afternoon blue sky through the slats of wavering stems and blossoms, when he hears Sherlock's feet in the grass and his voice calling John's name.

"Over here," he answers sleepily.

It doesn't take long for Sherlock to find him. When he does he's in nothing but his blue robe, loosely cinched at the waist. "There you are." John hums in obvious affirmation. "I've been thinking, we ought to get started on - what are you doing?"

Pleased to have so effectively derailed Sherlock's train of thought, John gives a lazy, luxurious stretch. "Was gonna take a nap."

"No, I mean," and here he gestures to where John's hand has curled around Sherlock's calf and is now rubbing up and down his leg. "What are you _doing_?"

"I said I _was_ going for a nap, now I'm thinking a little differently." He squeezes the back of Sherlock's knee and Sherlock goes uncharacteristically still.

"You're shirtless."

"Mhm."

"...You're touching me."

"I am."

John can almost hear him thinking. Then with a whisper of blue cloth, Sherlock floats down to straddle John's thighs with his knees in the dirt, resting in the V of John's hips.

"Sex. You're thinking sex." It almost sounds accusatory, but John doesn't miss the way he sighs the last word as John pushes himself to sitting.

"That's my genius," John sighs, skimming his hands up beneath Sherlock's robe. Sherlock twines his arms easily around John's neck and smiles as John moves his hands over his thighs - and yeah, that's Sherlock's nonexistent beliefs about modesty yet again confirmed.

Getting a handle on all that bare skin, John groans. He hitches the robe higher, bunching it up against Sherlock's waist. Sherlock, half-hard already, rocks into him. John rocks back, and a few heady thrusts later Sherlock is scrambling for John's zip, huffing out a frustrated breath when it doesn't immediately give way.

A chuckle catches in John's throat as he tries to lift his hips, the better for Sherlock to shove his jeans halfway down his thighs. Still, Sherlock's eyes zero in on him, bright over the flush of his face.

"Nothing," John denies before Sherlock can even ask, his palms busy curling over Sherlock's hipbones and pulling him closer.

Pressed chest to chest, Sherlock has to tip his head forward to keep eye contact. Sherlock's curls tickle his forehead and Sherlock's voice rumbles through his chest when he says, "You were laughing." He hesitates. "_You _were the one who wore the stupid things."

Something in the tone makes John pause, makes his fingers tighten over Sherlock's skin. He reaches up with one hand to cradle his face, feeling him breathe and skating a thumb over his jawline before he speaks. Then, "I like the way you want me," he says honestly, the words mouthed hotly beneath Sherlock's chin. Soft and slow, he bites down, sucks not enough to bruise but enough to remind Sherlock he is not alone, not anymore. "'s exactly the way I want you."

Sherlock's hands clench over his shoulders. He's not ashamed, then, to take one of John's arms and sling it around his own waist. The silent request to be _held_ turns something funny happen in John's chest - it makes him squeeze harder, even as he plants the other arm on the ground behind him for leverage and thrusts up, hard and wanting.

They both cry out. Sherlock's head falls back and his eyes flutter closed. John pulls him closer and does it again, and it yanks a second choked moan from Sherlock's throat. John's cock, already leaking and flushed where it's trapped between them, twitches harder, and with a groan of his own he drags Sherlock tighter against him and tries his best not to buck Sherlock off completely.

Sherlock, for his part, doesn't seem to mind. He grinds down into John's lap with each upward push of his hips, and they rock against each other with such practiced ease that John has a passing, dreamy thought that it's as if they've been together for years rather than a few weeks. Yet Sherlock's hands fisting over his shoulder, the fingers crumpled in his own hair and the way he pants, the way he _sounds _- Sherlock fucks like every time is the first time.

"Desperately," John says, then clarifies on another rolls of his hips, "The way I want you."

Sherlock's eyes focus on him blearily. John, pressing a hand to the small of his back, says, "Completely. Like - oh, god," he gasps, the rest of the sentence slipping away under the haze of approaching orgasm.

"Like what?" Sherlock grits out, fighting to keep his own eyes open. Sherlock's breaths are sharp and stuttering and John knows it won't be long now.

He slows, enough to make Sherlock groan in frustration but enough that his head clears, the edge backing away. John says, "Like Rose of Sharon. Honey, dripping off the comb."

The hand around Sherlock's skinny hips grazes up his spine, trapped between the coolness of the robe and the suffocating heat that radiates from Sherlock's fevered skin. The gentle pressure of it tips Sherlock closer, their lips almost brushing, the shaky breaths of his lover warming John's face.

"Licorice and cinnamon, though not together."

"John." Sherlock's eyes are wide.

John smiles. Kisses him. "You. Like now and always." He kisses him open-mouthed and slow, resumes thrusting at the same time as his hand slips between them to pull on Sherlock's sensitive cock, and it's mere seconds before Sherlock grunts and comes for what seems like ages, shuddering over and over again before he finally collapses against John's chest, limp and entirely wrung-out.

The weight knocks John flat on his back. Though John finds, not at all strangely, that he doesn't mind. Not when Sherlock's lying pliant and close against John's albeit sticky stomach, muscles shivering while John pets his hair and coaxes him down with soft touches and softer words.

Evening's coming on. John hadn't noticed, but against their sweating skin the wind is cooler than before, the sun not as bright. Sherlock seems to seek his heat, shifting closer, but it's a long while before he speaks.

"John." At last he tries to struggle upwards on weak arms. "What about -"

"Shh," John murmurs with a laugh. He squeezes Sherlock's shoulder, his wrist and his hand. "Later."

Sherlock quiets, sinking back down. Another breeze turns his head into John's chest, where John doesn't think he imagines the kiss Sherlock places to the meet of his ribs. He mumbles something drowsily into the skin, and John debates whether it's worth asking him to say it again - he already knows. He already knows it very well.

But he thinks he'd like to hear it.

He nudges at Sherlock's shoulder. "Whad'you say?"

Sherlock lifts his head the tiniest bit. "Yes," he says simply, and brushes another kiss over John's pectoral before sinking back down with a sigh.

John's drifting off to sleep when Sherlock says, almost too quiet to hear: "I think I know what pomegranate's for."

* * *

There's a man who comes into the shop at exactly three o'clock every day and orders one cup of Sherlock's Orange Pomegranate, which he pays for with exact change and a smile that is both tired and brave in a way John doesn't quite understand.

He hands it over with a smile of his own, but it's never enough - the man comes in, coat long and silver hair short, takes his tea at one of their window seats and, perhaps after fiddling with his phone or the paper for a bit, leaves again.

"What do you think?" John asks in one of the early days, catching Sherlock's elbow as he passes him behind the counter.

Sherlock doesn't bother looking up from where he's mixing something over the stove. "About what?"

John jerks his head towards their guest.

"You gossip like an old woman, John."

"Come on, play the game. For me."

Sherlock flicks the man a brief glance before returning to the pot. "Not new in town. His job requires he pass through on the way to London. Policeman. Detective Inspector, probably."

"You've been sneaking the White Rose again," John accuses, bumping his hip on the way back. Sherlock doesn't deny it.

But later, as they're closing up shop, Sherlock asks "What did he drink?"

"Who?"

"The DI."

"Oh, um." John thinks back through the day's orders. "Orange Pomegranate. Which is a lovely tea, but perfectly ordinary, by the way. I still can't get anything out of it. You given up on that one yet?"

Sherlock makes a noncommittal hum, sweeping from the room before John can drag an answer out of him.

The man's visits go on for months before one day he hesitates as he's ordering. His brown eyes crinkle, and he says instead, "Just a coffee for me, thanks."

John gives him a look. "You sure?"

The man raises an eyebrow. "Yes," he responds, drawing out the word.

"It's just, you always," John fumbles, "...the Orange Pomegranate?"

"Oh." As John starts on his drink, the man looks thoughtful. "Hasn't been working for me, past few days. Did you change it up?"

John shakes his head. "Ah." The man shrugs, grins a little sheepishly. "To be honest, always was more of a coffee man. Probably a fluke."

"Probably." John watches him walk back to his table to wait for his order, and that's when he notices.

Before he developed a liking for towering, surly, curly-headed gardeners, he might've noticed earlier - the woman sitting across from their detective inspector is pretty in a sweet sort of way that reminds John of some of the girls he once dated at uni. Then again, maybe it's because of his affections for Sherlock that he notices at all. There's something in the way her hand curves over his wrist, something that lingers even when the lines of his face melt away into a smile - it recognizes John, knowing, still and deep.

He has to look away, and his eyes fall straight to Sherlock at a table of his own, reading while he waits for John to finish up.

Sherlock's looking at them, too, his mouth curled into a satisfied smile. When he looks back at John, it softens.

They go about the rest of the day as usual. Eventually, the couple by the window leaves, hands entwined. Other customers come and go. Once, John passes Sherlock's table and feels a hand encircle his wrist, squeezing gently as Sherlock presses something into his palm.

John waits until he's behind the counter to look.

A small white rose, fresh-picked, and a crumpled note that simply reads: _I know._

* * *

"Comfort," Sherlock murmurs, when they're stretched out in the garden under a haze of stars and blossomed branches. "Comfort for the lonely, to be specific. That's why I couldn't seem to get it to work. Why you never felt anything when you drank it, and why our newly romantically-involved detective inspector has moved back to," he wrinkles his nose, "coffee."

John's quiet for a time. He stares up at where the light winks in and out of the purpling sky. "You didn't need it after me."

Sherlock is silent, too. He slides his fingers through the blooms beside them - Sherlock had coaxed his climbing roses through the arms of the tree; now the canopy rises over them like a night sky of its own, studded with white. With the starlight glancing through the pearl and green, John feels he's trapped somewhere ethereal and timeless. Finds, as Sherlock's other hand threads into his own, that he wouldn't mind staying there forever

"No," Sherlock says at last. His eyes hold their own galaxies, turned to face him. "Neither did you."

John brings Sherlock's hand up and brushes a kiss to the fleshy jut of his palm.

The tea Sherlock had made for them has gone cold. John's infusion of bravery, however, is not to be wasted. He takes a deep breath.

"Will you -"

"Yes," Sherlock sighs. "Of course, yes. Did you not notice?" He's babbling. "Not just a normal white rose; it was _bridal _white."

"Neither of us are brides," John points out, and Sherlock groans and rolls over, snugging himself up against John's side. He stares down at the side of John's face until John turns to give him a soft kiss. "Of course I noticed," he says, seriously now. "I _know_ you."

"Hmm." The sound vibrates against John's lips like one of Sherlock's bees, and John giggles. "You do, don't you?"

"Yeah." John drops an arm to Sherlock's waist, shifting to face him. "I know you, and I love you. I do."

Sherlock is quiet. Then his hands come up, seizing his face so desperately, so delicately John thinks Sherlock may well be holding his heart instead. "Marry me," he murmurs, defiant and devoted.

"I've already asked you, sort of."

"_John._"

He runs a soothing hand up Sherlock's arm. Cups his jaw. "Now and always," he assents, and lets Sherlock kiss him for a long, long time beneath the stars, the roses and sky.


End file.
